Antipattern: Using Ruby's Hash#[]

This is part of our antipatterns series. Ouch! Updated for 2017!

Ask yourself why you're using Hash#[]. It is is a great way to introduce silent bugs into your app.

Use Hash#fetch if you expect the value to exist

That way you get sensible error messages.

#> params = {}

#> params.fetch('really').fetch('important')
KeyError: key not found: "really"

Use Hash#dig if you don't care

Because you don't get idiotic, non-semantic NoMethodError: undefined method '[]' for nil:NilClass errors.

#> params.dig('really', 'important')
=> nil

Avoid Hash#[] because... just... why?

#> params['really']['important']
NoMethodError: undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass

Special case: ENV

The Twelve-Factor App has us all using environment variables. But most of us default to ENV#[] to look stuff up... even if it's critical. Bad idea! Use fetch!

#> ENV['REALLY_IMPORTANT'] == 'thing'
=> false # well i hope you didn't need that

#> ENV.fetch('REALLY_IMPORTANT') == 'thing'
KeyError: key not found: "REALLY_IMPORTANT"